"Kelly, Katie" <kkelly@spss.com> writes:
> SM started off as an experimental class, created by
> Howard, yes, but with a lot of input (I am so understating this) from
Dennis
> Grant and the SM crew.
This is the jist of it, yes.
> In Howard's private post to your friend that you
> published on team.net, he says he would forward your friend's concerns to
> the SEB. This would indicate, to me, that SM is now in the SEB's hands.
This is also true. In fact, depending on how you squint at it, it was
*always* true.
In any case, Howard has a lot of influence on the SEB, doubly so in the
case of SM. I have an undetermined amount of influence on Howard, mostly
because I'm the funnel through which the opinions of the Street Mod Mailing
List flow.
> SM appears to be in its evolution cycle
This is also true. "No plan survives contact with the enemy".
Note that for evolution to work, changes have to be *gradual*. You cannot
throw a fish into the desert and expect it to spontanuously evolve into a
camel.
> Personally, at first I didn't like the class,
> mostly because I found Dennis Grant's posts really annoying.
Likewise, I'm sure. :|
> What troubled me with SM, and appears to still be troubling you, Paul,
was
> that the ONLY way anyone could be involved with its development was to be
> online, which limited the input, in my opinion. I didn't feel that
> SCCA/Howard/Dennis really made a concerted effort to really poll SM
> prospects,
You underestimate us. It is the job - no, the *duty* - of each member of
the online SM community to actively seek out SM competitors and prospective
competitors, talk to them, poll them, and return those opinions to the
group for discussion. We all work really really hard at this, not just
because it's The Right Thing To Do, but because we're finding that we're
the ambassadors of the SCCA to the outside world.
And my God, what a crappy reputation the SCCA has! But that's another topic
for another day.
> Howard's role is to figure out how to make us
> all happy. Howard is a very nice person to do this. I am very impressed
that
> Howard took the time to write to your friend and give a little
background,
> and that he gave HIS side of it, and also said he would forward your
> friend's concerns to the SEB. That to me shows a lot of class.
Agreed, agreed, agreed, and agreed.
It seems like it's bash Howard week for some reason - I had someone on the
SMML compare him to Hitler. (Man, bite the hand that feeds you why don't
you? Sheesh!)
For all the "King Howie" tongue-in-cheekyness that goes on, we are all
very, very lucky to have Howard in the job that he has. Howard "gets it"
better than anyone else in the sport. We could do far worse than have the
person who best understands the sport be in such a position of influence.
That's not to say he doesn't have his quirks (The man is *convinced* that
there's a long lineup of _Corvairs_ just itching to run SM) but I for one
trust and value his opinion - he's usually right.
Conversely, one could use posts accusing Howard of various neferiousness as
a litmas test for cluelessness.
DG
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